The Cold Eye (The Devil's West #2)(79)

As though she’d just remembered it too, she made a graceful turnaround as she walked, the edges of her coat flaring out as she overtly rested her gun hand on her belt, and called out, “Gentlemen. As we’re about to enter what passes for civilized ground in these parts, and as you are, technically, in my custody, I’m going to have to ask you to submit your wrists to cuffs for a brief time.”

Cuffing someone meant if there was trouble, they couldn’t take care of themselves. Marshals and posses alike found it better to trust in parole, that they wouldn’t do anything foolish otherwise. Anyone born to the Territory would know being bound for an insult, a presumption they would not honor their word. Here, now, with what Gabriel had just told her . . . well, if Gabriel was wrong, he was wrong. And if he was even a sliver of right . . .

Better thought overcautious than proven a fool. And the distraction from his own words was welcome just then.

The scout scowled when she dangled the silver straps in one hand, his face scrunched like a porcupine in daylight, and Gabriel braced to take him down if there was trouble, but the American marshal sighed and stepped forward, his arms offered up in front of him.

“Be gentle; I bruise easily,” he said, and LaFlesche let out a huff that could have been a laugh as she clapped one of the straps over his wrists in a twisted loop, tapping them once to wake the binding. He tilted his head, studying the seamless clasp, then strained a little, but Gabriel thought it more to see how the binding would react than any real attempt to break his wrists free.

“Comfortable enough?”

“Comfortable enough,” he agreed. “Lighter than the ones we carry, too. I don’t suppose that little trick’d work outside the Territory?”

“No idea,” LaFlesche said. “Hand?”

Isobel seem startled to be addressed. “I . . .” She paused, then reached out to touch the bands where they crossed Tousey’s wrists. “No. I’m not even sure it would continue to work if you were to get too far from Marshal LaFlesche?—” Her cheeks flushed as she realized that might not have been the wisest thing to say.

“Too late,” Gabriel said cheerfully as LaFlesche stepped past them to cuff the scout as well, ignoring his quiet mutters. “And if you ran,” he said loud enough for the scout to hear, “I’m reasonably handy with a rope, been known to haul in a running calf at twenty paces.”

He was lying through his teeth, but it was worth it for the glare he got from Anderson and the chin-down smirk Isobel tried to hide, knowing full well that he was lying.

He suspected, with what waited for them ahead, that might be the last bit of amusement any of them had for a while.



When Gabriel said they were within striking distance of their destination, Isobel had felt the brief urge to burst into tears like a child, restraining herself only because she was aware both their prisoners and the marshal were watching, alert to any sign of weakness.

What she felt, most of all, was exhaustion. The magicians . . . To the outer eye, they did not seem to have moved, facedown over horseback like sacks of flour, but Isobel had felt an increased push on the wards that morning, and it was only growing worse. The shorter, square-shouldered magician was trying to wake, wind swirling within him like a dust storm gaining power, and her the single tree standing in its path.

She held, but just barely, and at the cost of sleep. Another day, or if the other magician also began to push, the bindings would fray and fail.

Had it been only them, her and Gabriel, and perhaps only one magician, she might have risked allowing it. She was curious what might remain of them, away from the rage of the ancient spirit; if there might be a way to reclaim them, the way a stream filtered clear again after a storm, or at least learn what they had done, what they had woken. But she could not risk it. The road marshal might have accepted her position and authority, but the other two, the Americans, had no reason to believe she was anything more than what she appeared: a young female, with a horse they could use to escape. If they thought for an instant that she was distracted . . .

After two days, she was reasonably certain that Marshal Tousey would not be so foolish, but she hadn’t needed Gabriel’s side-glance cautions to know the sort of man the scout was. Not everyone who came into the saloon back in Flood had been gentle, or kind; folk made deals with the devil for revenge as often as for survival. If he saw opportunity, Anderson would slit their throats and steal their horses, the mule, and their boots. She would not give him the chance.

And Gabriel was hiding something from her. It was likely nothing, and Isobel suspected she was being foolish, but it wore on her nonetheless. And there never seemed a private time to bring it up, traveling with so large a group.

They came to the creek Gabriel had said was just before their destination, this one low enough that the water barely brushed the horses’ hooves. The marshal glanced at Isobel, who gave the other woman a go-ahead sign, the water too sluggish to pose much risk, although she took up position between the horses nonetheless as they moved down the slope and into the sun-warmed current.

“Gentlemen, bound hands does not make your legs suddenly shorter or slower. Lively, now!” LaFlesche called out, having noted a distinct slag to their pace as they slogged, wet-footed, to the top of the bank on the other side. “And there we are,” she said in satisfaction, coming to the rise of the bank and looking out.

Isobel brought the horses up and checked to make sure their burdens hadn’t shifted, then went to stand by LaFlesche. A wide dirt road elbowed toward them, then cut across a squared-off plain backed by low-sloping hills. Squinting, she saw the road led to the tall brown shape of a palisade wall.