The Cold Eye (The Devil's West #2)(31)

“Yes.” Gabriel was solid in his agreement on that.

But nobody had asked her to look. They’d given her supplies, hadn’t stopped her, but they hadn’t asked.

A whisper of need had driven her there . . . but she hadn’t heard it since then. Hadn’t heard anything. What had changed?

It started with the buffalo. The buffalo were none of the devil’s concern, outside the Agreement, and had no claim on her. But she had been drawn there, as had the Jack.

The Jack had walked away. Isobel had not.

What had drawn them there?

The sigil told her when something needed caring for, when a Hand’s touch was called for. But the sigil had itched when the whisper was silent, and the whisper had called her when the sigil was still, and then both had gone silent when she rode into these hills.

There was something about these hills.

She only realized she was holding the reins so tightly when Uvnee stopped, turning her head slightly as though to ask her rider what was wrong. “I’m obligated to look, to make sure nothing’s wrong. To deal with anything gone wrong.” That had been the terms of her bargain. To be his Hand where he couldn’t reach, to protect those who abided by the Agreement.

And Duck’s people abided. They’d said so. They had children who were of both bloods, who belonged to the Territory. Isobel had felt that, and the feeling had not set her wrong yet. Yet . . .

Doubt wriggled in her gut, like being water-sick.

“Is there a difference between being asked to do something and knowing it has to be done even if nobody asks you to do it?”

Gabriel blew out a breath. “There are some who’d say that’s the burden of leadership.”

She closed her eyes, concentrating on the feel of the mare’s bulk underneath her, the dryness of the air, the familiar, steadying smells of leather and horseflesh, of dirt and greenery, the sound of hooves and the creak of saddle leather and the soft whuffling breathing of the mule, keeping pace at her heel. “What do you say?”

“I think—”

Both horses pulled up short, jolting their riders in the saddle and causing the mule to let out an indignant protest as he smacked his head against Uvnee’s side. Gabriel slapped his hand down on the stock of his carbine before realizing that there was no threat.

Or rather, the threat was standing still in front of them, body turned so that it blocked their way, neck lowered so that it seemed to be staring directly at them from under the many-pronged antlers spreading like a crown over its head.

“Wapiti,” Gabriel said, a hushed tone, as though afraid to spook the creature. Isobel took in the bulk of it, easily a match for broad-chested Steady, and the wicked-looking tines of its antlers, and swallowed hard, trying to make herself as small and still as possible. It was after rutting season, but you could never tell what might set a bull off. Underneath her, Uvnee let out a soft huff that sounded terribly loud, and the creature?—wapiti, Gabriel called it—snorted at her in return, a louder, wetter noise.

Then it shifted, the neck lifting until its head was level with theirs, and Isobel was caught by the intensity of its eyes: the head might look like a deer’s, but there was no dumb beast staring back at her but an intelligence, sharp as an arrowhead and just as deadly.

Next to her she could hear the creak and rustle of Gabriel shifting in his saddle, the clink of a hoof against a stone, the soft breathing of the horses, but everything else was held silent, even the air around them.

Then the great deer snorted again, louder, and shook its head, the rack of bone coming terrifyingly close to them, before it wheeled and bounded off, faster than she would have thought it could move.

“That . . .” Her voice caught in her throat, stuck between fear and awe. “That wasn’t just an elk.”

“Not just,” Gabriel said, his voice as hushed as hers and just a little shaky. “Isobel, in all my years, I’ve encountered a total of four spirit-animals, and three of them have been since riding with you. I can’t say it’s a change I welcome.”

Four, Isobel thought, remembering the owl who had not spoken, then frowned, counting back. “Three? Two. The snake, and this . . .”

“And a second snake, when . . . It doesn’t matter,” he said, cutting off whatever he was going to say. “Just that next time you ask if something’s watching us? Assume that the answer is yes.”

He flicked Steady’s reins, and the gelding moved forward again, Uvnee following without her having to give a command. She glanced over her shoulder and saw the mule still standing there, its ears pulled back as though it weren’t convinced the elk wasn’t going to return.

“Flatfoot, come,” she called to it as though it were a dog, and the mule shook its head briskly but followed, blowing hard through its nose in protest.

“There’s something strange, though,” Gabriel said once they’d caught up with him.

Isobel felt a giggle bubble up, deep in her chest. “Stranger than that?”

“Look around you, Isobel. Your people back in the village, they said their animals had run off, yeah?”

She nodded. “Not the dogs but their goats, yes.”

“There’s grazing enough here for an entire herd of elk, and that should mean predators as well. But there’s no sign of elk or wolves, not for days, not even a curlhorn, and the last cat we’ve seen sign of was the one that attacked. We haven’t seen so much as a rabbit in days.”