The Cold Eye (The Devil's West #2)(15)

Isobel wrinkled her nose. “That’s just a story.”

He shrugged. “It’s an old story, and old stories have truth in ’em somewhere, most of them. This might be nothing to worry about, just the spirits dancing, or the earth shrugging ’cause we’re itching its back. But you were driven here by something, and you’re worried about what you’re reading, then yah, maybe it’s something new or worrisome. So, we poke our noses in and see what bites us.”

She gave his ribs a pointed look. “You haven’t gotten tired of being bitten yet?”

“You volunteer this time, then,” he said, cheerful enough to make her want to bite him.

“Don’t know who we’ll encounter up there,” Gabriel went on, thoughtfully. “Your friends probably splintered off a Shoshone or Cheyenne tribe east of here, maybe some of their kin went farther up mountain, but if so, I don’t speak much of their tongue. Never had need to learn it.” He sounded regretful but resigned. “Don’t suppose you could talk one of these folks into coming with us, as guide?”

Isobel shook her head, finding a thread that was beginning to pull loose on her skirt and trying to poke it back into the weave. The clothes that had been newly stiff when she’d first packed them back at the saloon were soft and faded now; sun and dirt and washing with a poor excuse for soap had left their mark. She should have bought a new skirt and underthings at the mercantile, back at La Ramée, but she’d been distracted by the ill post-rider and Gabriel’s injury.

“They don’t want to leave. This is their home, and I don’t think they’ve anywhere else to go.”

“They’ll defend this past dying,” Gabriel said. “Foolish, but understandable, I suppose.”

Driven by that thought, Isobel reached out once more, bending from the stool to place her palm flat on the ground, trying to sense again what lay just beyond the small valley they were in.

Nothing. She could feel where she was, and where they had been, but the way north was still empty, like an unfinished map fading into blank parchment.

No, not blank, she thought. Scraped clean.

The feeling shuddered through her, made her want to ride for Flood without stopping, spill everything she knew, everything she had seen, everything she feared, and ask the boss to deal with it. He was the Master of the Territory; she was only his Hand, and a poor one at that. The boss might—

“Stop that.”

She looked up at Gabriel, blinking. “What?”

His eyes were narrowed to slits, his face set in too-stern lines. “You were thinking that you had no idea what to do, bordering on panic, mayhap. That this was beyond your handling. That from the girl who locked horns with a magician, who took on Spaniards, who faced down a spell-born creature, and made them all behave?”

Gabriel was an excellent card player when he chose to be, and his body gave off little he did not want known. But at that moment, he practically shouted derision and disbelief, and Isobel felt her mouth twist into a reluctant smile.

“Not alone, I didn’t,” she said.

“And you’re not alone now. If you’re done being foolish?” he asked, and she huffed at him but nodded. “We’ll need to barter in the morning, if your new friends have provisions available. If there are more quakes, odds are game will be harder to find.”

She made a face. “They had goats, but they all ran off. Dried meat again?”

“I thought you liked it.” He was teasing her now, trying to change the mood, and she let him.

“Not for every meal. My jaws ache”—and she opened and shut them to make the point. “We’ll be able to forage, though? It’s not as though plants can turn tail and run.”

“All the bitterroot and lamb’s-quarter you can eat,” he promised, knowing full well how much she hated lamb’s-quarter. “And this time of year, odds are we’ll find berries, too. But better to be prepared.” He glanced up across the clearing, studying the tiny garden visible from where they were with a dubious expression, as though not expecting them to have much to share.

“Lamb’s-quarter and soaked beans,” she said, trying to work up some enthusiasm. “Maybe trout?” Fish were limited in how far they could flee, after all. Although her previous attempts at catching trout had been less than successful, so maybe she’d make sure they packed?—

“Oh.” In the shock of everything, she had nearly forgotten. “There was a packet for you.”

“What?”

She took an obscure pleasure in having surprised him. “At the waystation,” she said, reaching over to pull at her pack, dragging it within reach so she could dig the envelope out and hand it to him. “For you.”



Gabriel had taken the letter from Isobel, his fingers near numb with unhappy surprise, but there’d been no time to open it before several of the children ran up to them, wanting to see the horses, and he’d shoved it into his bag before putting the two youngest on the mule’s back and leading him around in a small circle, while Isobel showed the others how to offer Steady a handful of grass in their open palm until he lowered his head and let them pet him to their heart’s content. And then one of the women came to chase the children away, inviting them to join them for the afternoon meal.

Isobel’s brief telling of their story, as much as she knew of it, had made him curious as to where they came from or why they’d settled here, without kin or tribe, but he pushed his curiosity as far as possible without giving offense, and they merely smiled at him, closed-mouthed, and took another bite of bread, or a drink of water, then turned to someone else and spoke in another language, closing him out until he relented. Isobel was likely correct: wherever they had been was no longer an option for them.This was all they had left, and they would not let go of it, not even to admit that something was wrong.